Reducing the amount of sugar in the diet is another solution to reducing the risk of diabetes or helping current diabetics however it is a tricky one. Substituting sugar with low-calorie or no-calorie sweeteners may seem like a good idea at first because they seem like safe alternatives but in fact they contain compounds that may be harmful to the body. Some of the sweeteners that we will talk about are Stevia, Sweet ‘n’ Low, Equal, High-Fructose Corn Syrup, and Agave.
Stevia
The sweetener stevia has no calories and derives from a plant. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved stevia leaves or stevia extracts for use as a food additive. The FDA has allowed companies to use an isolated chemical from stevia which they have decided is “generally safe.” Other products like Truvia are able to use Rebaudioside A in their sweeteners.
In a study done on rats consuming low-calorie sweeteners, the sweeteners led the rats to overeat. It was believed that this resulted because of the “mismatch between the perceived sweetness and the expected calories from the sugar.” It was later argued that people who use artificial sweeteners may have health problems because of the excess sugar they consume such as metabolic syndrome.
Sweet ‘n’ Low (Saccharin)
There has been much controversy about this artificial sweetener. In the early 1970s studies showed that rats exhibited an increase in urinary bladder cancer when they consumed high doses of saccharin. Congress required that more studies be done on the effects of saccharin and also declared that all food containing saccharin needed to have a warning label. Years later, other studies showed that the results from the existing studies only applied to rats. Saccharin does not show consistent evidence of bladder cancer in humans. Since the findings are inconsistent there is no guarantee that Sweet ‘n’ Low is safe to use.
Given the information, it's up to you to decide!
References
1. “What is Stevia?” by Lauren Cox
http://www.livescience.com/39601-stevia-facts-safety.html
2. Textbook of Natural Medicine Third Edition Volume 2 by Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr. and Michael T. Murray
3. “Artificial Sweeteners and Cancer”
http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/artificial-sweeteners-fact-sheet
4. “The health risks of saccharin revisited” by Ellwein LB, Cohen SM
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2202324